It's not easy to find a musician who hasn't heard of Electro-Harmonix, but if you're one of them, consider yourself lucky: this is an introduction that could do great things for your musical career. In fact, even if the name is new to you, the sounds probably aren't: Electro-Harmonix amplifiers & effects have been a mainstay of professional artists for years. You would need a lot of hands to count on your fingers all the legendary riffs from the past four and a half decades that were created using EHX stompboxes.

Electro-Harmonix was founded in 1968 by Mike Matthews, and he had a simple idea in mind: to put effects units at the feet of any guitarist or bassist who wanted them. That may sound strange today, in a world where effects are considered standard equipment. But, in 1968, the field was brand-new and most effects units worth using were way out of the price range of the day-to-day gigging musician. By creating units that delivered big performance without breaking budgets, Electro-Harmonix played a big role in shaping effects as we know them today.

In fact, EHX pedals were so good that even musicians with stratospheric budgets started picking them up - not for the price tag, but for their excellent sound. For instance, here's a short list of just a few of the artists who topped charts with the EHX Big Muff Pi: David Gilmour, Jack White, Pete Townshend, Kurt Cobain, The Edge, Billy Corgan and Ace Frehley. A roster like that makes it easy to see why the Big Muff Pi and its variants are still the most popular pedals in the Electro-Harmonix lineup.

Here's the bottom line... if you're looking for some of the best stompboxes in the world, Electro-Harmonix effects will definitely fit the bill. Considering that they gave us the earliest practical effects pedal and kept on pushing the envelope ever since, it's no wonder that EHX is still a force to be reckoned with so many decades after their first unit rolled out of the shop.